About this project

For two weeks, Choctaw-Hopi artist and professor Linda Lomahaftewa and I will travel through the south to visit archaeological sites in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Our goal is to further our research of the Mississippian and earlier indigenous cultures and the iconography of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. We will both visit the mother mounds of our respective tribes for the first time. Our hope is to better understand connections between ancient peoples and contemporary tribes, intertribal relations, and the way oral histories connect to the land.

Some locations we will visit include:

• Spiro Mounds, OK
• Poverty Point, Epps, LA
• Grand Village of the Natchez, Natchez, MS
• Emerald Mound, Stanton, Mississippi
• Nanih Waiya, Winston County, Mississippi
• Moundville Archaeological Site, Tuscaloosa, AL
• Etowah Mounds, Cartersville, Bartow County, GA
• New Echota, Calhoun, GA
• Nikwasi Mound, Franklin, NC
• Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC
  
• Kituwah Mound, Bryson City, NC
• Museum of the Cherokee Indian, Cherokee, NC
• Knoxville, TN, Frank McClung Museum, Knoxville, TN
• Old Stone Fort, Coffee County, TN
• Pinson Mounds, Madison County, TN
• Chucalissa Indian Village, Memphis, TN
• Hampson Museum, Wilson, AR
• Parkin Mound, Parkin, AR
• Toltec Mounds Archeological State Park, Scott AR

We will extensively photograph these sites and will place some of our photographs into the public domain to be used by teachers and artists. During the trip, we'll sketch sites and post blogs. Upon our return to Santa Fe, we'll create new series of works based on the journey, which will be exhibited in the spring of 2012 at Ahalenia Studios in Santa Fe. We will give presentations of our travels in both New Mexico and Oklahoma, with the goal of sharing information and creating dialogue with artists, writers, storytellers, and researchers from a wide range of tribes.

Funding will go towards gas, food, lodging, and other basic travel expenses. We're doing this on credit cards right now, because it's a trip of a lifetime!